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The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." - Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. --Voltaire--

Faith of consciousness is freedom
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of the body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feeling is slavery
Hope of body is disease. [Gurdjieff]

Life is religion. Life experiences reflect how one interacts with God. Those who are asleep are those of little faith in terms of their interaction with the creation. Some people think that the world exists for them to overcome or ignore or shut out. For those individuals, the worlds will cease. They will become exactly what they give to life. They will become merely a dream in the "past." People who pay strict attention to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "Future." [Cassiopaea 09-28-02]

 

April 13, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions....The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

Killing the Independent Media The tragic death of two journalists on the 8th of April bears a direct relationship to the timing of US military operations in Baghdad. The killings were an integral part of the Pentagon's war plans. They marked a turning point in the disinformation campaign.

On the 8th of April, Al Jazeera and Reuters were deliberately targeted. This was not an accident. In fact, it was consistent with Pentagon "guidelines" regarding the independent "unembedded journalists", who had been reporting since the beginning of the war under the "protection" of the Iraqi Ministry of Information.

A week prior to the war, the Pentagon had intimated that it would target the transmission of information by independent journalists, from their satellite mobile phones. (Of course, that does not mean that they would actually kill the journalists.) According to veteran BBC correspondent Kate Adie, in an interview with Irish TV, the Pentagon had:

"threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists. Uplinks is where you have your own satellite telephone method of distributing information, the telephones and the television signals. According to the Pentagon official they would be 'targeted down... Who cares.. ..They've been warned'" ( See transcript of interview with Katie Adie, Pentagon Threatens to Kill Independent Reporters in Iraq)

The underlying objective was to unseat the "unembedded media" and disrupt factual and objective reporting from the war theatre. The killing of the journalists was also a warning to media organizations from Asia and the Middle East, which were covering the war from Baghdad, without due accreditation of the US military. With the entry of US troops into Baghdad, the independent journalists, who were operating under the protection of the Iraqi Ministry of Information, were brought under the direct control of the US military. In turn, the approved USCENTCOM "embedded journalists", attached to various US and British divisions, were now reporting directly from Baghdad, overshadowing and silencing many of their independent "nonembedded" colleagues, who had been operating out of the Palestine Hotel.

This shift in jurisdiction over the independent journalists in Baghdad took place on the 8th of April, with the breakdown of the Ministry of Information and the killing of two independent journalists by US forces.

The Al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayoub was killed when two US missiles struck Al Jazeera's Baghdad offices: "The Al Jazeera cameraman was killed on the roof 'getting ready for a live broadcast amid intensifying bombardment of the city when the building was hit by two missiles.'"

"Another journalist died and four others were also injured when a US tank round later hit the Palestine Hotel where at least 200 international correspondents, including Al-Jazeera reporters, are staying..." "A Reuters reporter, photographer, television cameraman and television technician were taken to hospital after the blast. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear." (Reuters, 8 April 2003)

According to the Pentagon, "American soldiers who killed two foreign journalists in a Baghdad hotel had 'exercised their inherent right to self-defence'. (quoted in the Advertiser, 10 April 2003). The Pentagon's objective was clear: foreclose independent reporting of the ongoing battle of Baghdad. How to achieve this objective:

-intimidate the un-embedded journalists and oblige them to seek approval and/or accreditation with the US military,

-exert direct censorship on the flow of information out of Baghdad.

Targeting "Unembedded" Humanitarian Organizations
Coincidence? On the same day, April 8th, a convoy of seven vehicles of the Red Cross (ICRC), involved in re-supplyng the city's hospitals .was "caught in cross fire". Thirteen people were killed including the ICRC delegate in Baghdad (who is a Canadian). The vehicles "were clearly marked with large red crosses visible from a distance." (Health Newswire Consumer, 10 April 2003). The press reports suggest that the convoy had been deliberately targeted. The Red Cross was the last independent international aid agency operating in Baghdad. It suspended its operations that same day, April 8th.

The attack on the Red Cross, which had been working closely with Iraqi health officials and hospital staff, was also an important turning point. It laid the groundwork for bringing in the Pentagon's approved ("embedded") humanitarian organizations and aid agencies.

Saddam's Statue: A Media Staged Event
The following day, 9th of April, broadcast live by network TV, the whole world had its eyes riveted on the collapse of Saddam's 40 foot statue, portraying "a jubilant crowd."

A couple of hundred people at most, mainly by-standers gathered in Al-Fardus Square, while the statue was brought down by US Marines in a carefully staged media event. An Aerial photograph of the event suggests that the square had been "sealed off and guarded by tanks" (NYC Indymedia) . The Marines had draped an American flag over Saddam's statue and forcefully pulled it down with a tug from a tank recovery vehicle. A hundred or so people, at most, were shown on TV screens, rejoicing. (The Video is available online at Reuters. Photographs of the event are also available)

The "liberation footage" was replayed obsessively by network TV. "Iconic images" of the toppled statue were plastered on the front page of major newspapers. In chorus, the Western media portrayed this staged event as "historic", as a spontaneous mass movement of "thousands" of "happy Iraqis", celebrating the "Liberation of Iraq" by American troops.

Reuters first released the story on the 9th, following the Live TV newscast. The report said that "dozens" of people were celebrating the collapse of the statue. Hours later, this story had already been changed. The AFP report also acknowledged that "dozens" of people were rejoicing:

"Tanks had rumbled by late afternoon into the central Al-Fardus (Paradise) Square, where dozens of Iraqis quickly set about the massive bronze statue of the Iraqi president, a symbol of his 24-year iron-fisted rule.... Dozens of Iraqis jumped on the fallen figure shouting with joy and venting their anger by breaking it into pieces." (AFP, 9 April 2003)

Prime Minister Tony Blair's mouthpiece, the London Daily Express, casually inflated the "dozens" to "thousands":

"In historic scenes reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of civilians cheered as young men mounted the statue and tied a makeshift noose around Saddam's neck." (Daily Express, 10 April 2003)

Baghdad was not rejoicing. Since the outset of the war, several thousand civilians had been murdered and maimed by US and British troops. US occupation forces invoking the pretext of self-defense continue to shoot indiscriminately at civilians, as evidenced by several press reports. (See for instance ABC TV broadcast, 10 April 2003). Baghdad has a population of 5.6 million and most people, fearing for the lives, decided to stay home. With the entry of US troops, a reign of terror prevails in Baghdad.

Media Spin
The bringing down of the statue of Saddam played a crucial role in the Pentagon's propaganda campaign. Relayed by Fox News and CNN, it was immediately heralded by TV channels and news media around the World as marking an end to the war. While fighting was still ongoing, with heavy casualties on both sides, the Western media had decided in chorus: "It's in the end game now,"

In turn, the toppling of Saddam's statue had become a symbol of Iraq's "Liberation" by US forces, overshadowing everything else, including the atrocities committed by US and British forces.

Since the entry of US troops into Baghdad, civilian casualties are no longer front-page news. The slaughter of women and children and the crisis in the hospitals, is no longer an issue. The impending humanitarian crisis, reported by the relief agencies and the UN is no longer mentioned. Civilian deaths are view as "the price to pay" to "liberate Iraq":

"the number of Iraqi civilians accidentally killed has been far, far less than the number that would have been killed by Saddam Hussein's evil regime in the normal scheme of things" (Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 8 April 2003)

. "I'm sure there will be more casualties, but it is one of the prices we have to pay" (Washington Post, 10 April 2003)

"'one day' the mothers of children killed or maimed by British cluster bombs will thank Britain for their use (British Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon quoted in the Independent, 5 April 2003)

In turn, because "the war is nearly over", detailed and accurate reporting from the war theatre is no longer deemed necessary.

Meanwhile, financial markets rejoice. Investors on Wall Street "applauded images of a statue of Saddam...[which] sent sent stocks surging..." (UPI, 9 April 2003).

This "liberation euphoria" also serves to disarm the critics and create divisions within the anti-war movement. A segment of the anti-war movement now views as "positive" the demise of the Iraqi regime, thereby tacitly signifying their approval of the US military intervention in support of "regime change".

"Peace", "reconstruction", "democracy" and "the post-Saddam era" are the buzz words. The main justification for waging the war (i.e. Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction) is no longer deemed relevant. The fact that the invasion was a criminal act in blatant violation of the UN charter and the Nuremberg charter on war crimes is no longer an issue. (For further details see Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal. Adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, 1950 ).

The Pentagon's propaganda apparatus had taken over. The targeted killing of journalists in Baghdad marked a crucial turning point. Independent reporting out of Baghdad has been seriously impaired.

News media from Arab countries including Al Jazeera, which had been threatened for their "non-Western news perspective", were towing the line. Since the attack on its office in Baghdad, Al Jazeera's news reports seem to have taken on a different tone.

Virtually the entire news chain has become "embedded".

The War is not over
How best to disarm the anti-war movement and silence the critics: Convey the illusion that the war is over.

But the war is not over.

Heavy fighting is ongoing. The evidence suggests that a significant part of the Iraqi arsenal and troops is still intact. (For further details see the report of Richard Bennett published on April 5, 2003) . Thousands of Iraqi troops and armed civilians including volunteers from neighboring countries are confronting the invaders.

The Pentagon has acknowledged that it only controls part of the city.

The Battle of Baghdad is not over. The struggle against US occupation has commenced.

Something terrible happened on Highway 8. Something terrible happened on Highway 8. Some say a hundred civilians died there. Others believe that only 40 or 50 men, women and children were cut to pieces by American tank fire when members of the 3rd Infantry Division's Task Force 315 were ambushed by the Republican Guard

Many of their corpses still lie rotting in their incinerated cars, a young woman, burnt naked, slumped face down over the rear seat on the Hillah flyover bridge next to half of a male corpse that is hanging out of the driver's door. Blankets cover a pile of civilian dead, including a cremated child, a few metres away. A red car, shot in half by an American tank shell, lies on its side with the lower half of a human leg, still in a black shoe, beside the left front wheel.

No one disputes that the American troops were ambushed here – or that the battle only ended late on Wednesday afternoon. On the flyover, I found a dead Iraqi Republican Guard in uniform, his blood draining into the gutter, one foot over the other, shot in the head. A hundred metres away lay a car with an elderly civilian man dead under the chassis. Two fuel trucks – one of them still burning – lay in a field. An incinerated passenger bus stood beside the motorway.

Hundreds of Iraqis stared at the corpses in horror, most of them holding handkerchiefs to their faces and swatting the flies that moved between the living and the dead.

Captain Dan Hubbard, commanding the 315th's Bravo Company whose 10 tanks and four Bradley Fighting Vehicles hold the flyover bridge, described to me how his men came under fire "from 360 degrees" with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles at 7am when civilian traffic was moving along the motorway. "We're here to fight the Iraqi regime, not the civilians," he said. "There were cars on the road when we were ambushed and we fired over their heads two or three times to get them to stop. Ninety per cent of the vehicles turned away after a warning shot." Here the captain paused for a moment. "A lot of things go on in people's heads at such times," he said. "A lot of people speed up ... I had to protect my men. We tried our very best to minimise any kind of injuries and death to civilians. I have got to protect my soldiers because we don't know if it's a car-load of explosives or RPGs [rocket- propelled grenades]. We'll have the cars removed. The bodies will be taken care of."

Captain Hubbard was a thoughtful man, a 34-year-old from Tennessee who named his tank Rhonda Denise after his wife, who is "the toughest woman I've ever met" – though what she would make of the civilian horror on Highway 8 doesn't bear thinking about. Clearly the Iraqi Republican Guard also have a responsibility for this carnage since they started their ambush knowing full well that civilians would be on the motorway. Two American soldiers were killed in the battle and up to 30 wounded. Six US vehicles were destroyed, including two tanks. Many families had come to find their dead relatives and bury them but I counted at least 16 civilian bodies – and parts of bodies – still on the highway, several of them women.

And of course, this killing field raised a now familiar question. Americans fired tank shells at civilian motorists. Still their bodies lay beside the road – with the dead soldier – and still no one had buried them. Sure, the Americans tried not to kill civilians. But all would have been alive today had President George Bush not ordered his army to invade their country.

Blix: US Was Bent on War - War against Iraq was a foregone conclusion months before the first shot was fired, the chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has claimed. In a scathing attack on Britain and the US, Mr Blix accused them of planning the war "well in advance" and of "fabricating" evidence against Iraq to justify their campaign.

Letting rip after months of frustration, he told the Spanish daily El Pais: "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections."

Mr Blix said Iraq was paying a "a very high price in terms of human lives and the destruction of a country" when the threat of banned weapons could have been contained by UN inspections.

The 74-year Swedish diplomat made clear that he believes he was misled by President Bush. At a White House meeting last October Mr Bush backed the work of Unmovic, the UN inspection team.

But at the time Mr Blix knew "there were people within the Bush administration who were sceptical and who were working on engineering regime change". By the start of March the hawks in Washington and London were growing impatient.

He said he believed that finding weapons of mass destruction had been relegated as an aim and the main objective had become the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Turkey Eyes Kurdish Moves Make no mistake - Turkey is not bluffing when it comes to the future status of northern Iraq. The tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers on the border are not there just for show. The military observers accompanying American forces into Kirkuk are not simply a display of Turkish influence.

For months before the war began Turkey said it would not allow an independent Kurdish state to emerge from a post-Saddam Iraq. Turkey assumed that the US would win a crushing victory, that Iraq's central authority would crumble and that the Kurds who have governed their own affairs in the north of Iraq would move south to fill a power vacuum. One of Turkey's worst fears came to pass when Kurdish peshmerga took Kirkuk - the city is disputed, claimed by both Kurds and Turkmen, an ethnic group championed by Turkey. But more importantly, it sits atop a vast well of oil, Iraq's third largest reserves and enough to make an independent Kurdish state economically viable.

No matter that the Kurds who run northern Iraq say they are not interested in independence, no matter that America has promised Turkey it will not allow a Kurdish state to come into being Turkey has heard many promises before, and remembers the breaking of them. It was promised much by the US before the first Gulf War and feels it received very little. It has watched and noted the way that the US has abandoned allies. A war over Iraq and its oil may seem like a novelty to the West, but it was the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I - and its aftermath - that saw the last parts of the Ottoman empire, Turkey's predecessor, dismembered by the Allies.

Three More Marines Killed In Afghanistan Last Saturday Taliban militants killed three and wounded two US marines in the Afghan province of Kunar bordering on Pakistan, the Pakistani NNI news agency reports. The reports say that a group of 5 Taliban men delivered automatic fire at the US military base. Retaliation fire wounded two attackers. The US troops have enhanced security measures and are looking for the attackers. No reports on the fight in the Kunar province have come from the US command

Afghanistan - The last place we liberated. The White House calls Afghanistan a success story. But the failure to commit needed resources has left it a chaotic, increasingly dangerous country where violent warlords run amok. Are we going to repeat our mistake in Iraq? Warlords have made Afghanistan less safe for everyone, so too is it all the more dangerous for women, two girls had their throats cut, and there was a note left warning women not to go out without their burqas again." more..

 

April 12, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions....The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

US Victory A Little Too Easy! China's Motive behind SARS. Sender, Berl & Sons Inc. has a very bad feeling now that it appears that the US has won an overwhelming victory in Iraq; overthrowing Saddam, occupying Iraq, and seizing the oil fields. The problem first gnawed at us because Saddam didn’t take the bait to use WMD and thereafter did little to nothing to preclude the occupation.

Our first thought was that the counter strategy was to allow the US to occupy Iraq, the US never having enough troops to police the country. This being the case a war of attrition would commence that would cause mounting losses. A small but steady stream.

The new world order viewpoint is that as long as it has the oil, it is willing to take on losses. It will move to put in its government, but in the meantime if there is fractional fighting between three main groups in Iraq, the new world order looks forward to having them all kill themselves off and occupying themselves with internal conflict.

In the interim the new world order intends in our opinion to send in special ops into Syria to take out Assad. Psychologically this will be another demoralizing defeat for the Arab/Islamic nations.

The other day, the new world order deployed the very same tactics used in the Soviet Union, amassing no more than 100-200 people to topple before well positioned cameras the statute of Saddam, with a small group of complaint Iraqis kissing photos of Bush, pictures broadcast throughout the Arab/Islamic world, further demoralizing the Arab/Islamic nations. All this of course is the prelude to the conquest as we have long interpreted of the entire Middle East region, to dominate it and its critical oil asset.

However, we believe there is a serious counter strategy in play. What is the heart of the new world order agenda, aside of course from world domination and control? Answer: globalization, the vehicle to extracting the wealth of the world.

Thus, we now perceive that the counter strategy is to eviscerate globalization and we can now see how SARS and similar breakouts are the way to do it. Thus we depart with Dr. Horowitz that SARS is the introduction to new world order depopulation. While we do believe that the new world order has a Solent Green methodology somewhere in its evil design, and it crossed our mind whether SARS was the new world order’s way of telling China “Check” to its WNV move in the US, we now have a sinking suspicion that China may have inflicted SARS on itself.

Out of the box thinking is something attuned to our geopolitical analysis, and there is no question that President Bush joined us in the amazement of no WMD, no oil fires, no lacing of anthrax and other exotic viral compounds in the oil wells and fields to welcome those invading to seize them.

Thus President Bush while inclined to enjoy for a day or two the victory he is being toasted for throughout the Washington community, shares our concern these past days that there is something more to the overall picture.

The Chinese mindset is willing to lose the first battle to win the war. Strangely, as we identified to President Bush, this parallels the prior biblical time where initial victories went to the forces that claimed they represented good over their evil opponents. Thus, as we consistently have stated, the war has just begun.

Let us be the first to tell you that the Chinese are out to take out the world economies to blow up the new world order agenda of globalization. In other words, they are willing to cause serious damage to themselves to stave off the Bush thrust right now for critical victories to stage ultimate world domination and control.

SARS for instance is said not to be airborne but relayed through touching infected hard object areas. Follow this thought. Where are most goods essential to the US economy produced? China. What happens if it is discovered that goods from China are put together by Chinese workers putatively, or feared, infected with SARS?

If you get the picture, then extrapolate this out conceptually to get an idea of what SARS may represent as the initial staging of the counter design. There could be far more contagious derivatives and remember the CDC says three years for any antidote. The point is that if businessmen do not travel, product is quarantined, pandemic thinking prevails, then the global economy is dynamically frozen and globalization ceases. Countries then resume to serve their sovereign interests. The United States, with a collapsing dollar and economy, will drive with no objection the new world order group back to the crevices from which they all emerged.

It is a fascinating out of the box strategy. China making itself a primary victim of a disease having an announced nexus to the animal region of its country, further distancing itself from claims that SARS is a custom made designer virus as a weapon of war. In other words, China, to uproot the new world order design, becomes dynamically a limited suicide bomber itself!

What the new world order and President Bush have discounted incorrectly is the degree of unification in the Arab/Islamic world that was quite apparent to us when Turkey shut down the US design to move into northern Iraq through it.

We took a look into the aging face of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia today and we see that he knows that he has to sign off on desperate designs to counter the open Bush intent to take on Syria next, then Iran, and thereafter Saudi Arabia before moving against North Korea and then China.

The facet we did not perceive until today is that the target of the counter strategy is not the US or the US military but globalization. Remember, we said, that if there is a terrorist attack on the US, one of the prime reasons for terrorists targeting midtown Manhattan for a nuclear dirty bomb was not the resultant death of Americans but to poison new world order real estate and commercial interests, to render them useless for decades. It is in this same vein that the target is to undermine the ability to succeed in globalization. Without it, the new world order crew cannot achieve their designs.

We, in first asserting that China would act to preclude the US from seizing the Iraqi oil fields, said it because China could not, from our perspective, allow the new world order to seize it because it was critical to their world domination and control agenda.

However, China has come out with a unique but doable counter strategy, targeting itself initially with SARS, to lay the groundwork for a global pandemic that will uproot globalization, making possession of the oil largely irrelevant in that otherwise the new world order design cannot be achieved.

The reason we believe we are on target or close to target is because nothing in Iraq made sense in allowing the easy victory and most importantly the seizure of the oil fields. Now, we believe we quickly have assessed what may be taking place. As we said, we did not believe the emergence of SARS with the attack on Iraq could have been simply coincidental. China making itself the primary initial victim was in further line with the Chinese design of masking its role.

Conclusion: Our point to the new world order is the same one we have said all along: no matter what takes place, the biblical message of what results lie ahead is cogent and clear and also the reasons therefor. Continue to think that you will prevail and you will take the world to a very dark future. You will not get what you aim on securing for yourselves and the sooner you understand it the better it will be for us all.

Images of Shame A set of images on April 11, 2003 caused us to feel anger and shame. One set of images showed us troops protecting Iraq oil fields. Many soldiers with barbed wire with a defined, clear and cogent intent to protect the oil. Thereafter within minutes on another news channel we watched images of a looted hospital with children requiring surgery without aneasthesis without lights without requisite staff, their blood on the floor and death soon thereafter taking them. Why in the world with so few hospital facilities would not barbed wire and military personnel not likewise be positioned to protect the ability to mend and attend to the civilian casualties of war, especially the innocent children who screamed and cried from the trauma of losing not only loved ones but arms and legs from our bombs. more..

Civilians, US tank crew killed in attempt to destroy arms. Many Iraqi civilians and a US tank crew died today when a huge explosion destroyed around 20 houses in Baghdad. The explosion was the result of US marines attempting to decommission Iraqi munitions and rockets left by Saddam Hussein’s army in the Atayfiyya residential quarter of the capital. Iraqi arsenal destruction kills US tank crew and many Iraqi residents Our correspondent reports that a US tank was completely burned out with its two crew members still inside, suggesting that when the munitions were detonated, missiles launched in all directions, one slamming into the tank. A local journalist, Aasim Jihad, who owns one of the houses destroyed by the huge explosion says that the Marines came across a sizeable arsenal of weapons in the Atayfiyya quarter and decided to destroy it immediately. Many local residents of Atafiyya pleaded with the US troops to remove the munitions far away from the district, fearing for their safety. However, these calls fell on deaf ears and the US soldiers fired a shell on the arsenal which exploded at once.

Iraqis Storm Embassy In Tehran By Gilles Trequesser Iraqis stormed their embassy in the Iranian capital on Friday, tearing down photographs of Saddam Hussein but also chanting "Death to America."Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei welcomed the overthrow of the Iraqi leader by U.S. troops but urged them to quit Iraq immediately.

"You toppled Saddam, so now leave," he said in a sermon at Friday prayers attended by tens of thousands of worshippers. Exiled Iraqis climbed over the walls of the Iraqi embassy, ransacked the villa and smashed windows and furniture. After ripping and burning the embassy's portraits of Saddam, the protesters carried inside pictures of Ayatollah Mohammad Bakir Hakim, leader of the Iranian-based Supreme Council for the Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and hung one on the embassy gates.

Hakim, whose group draws its support from Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, has been in exile in Shi'ite Iran since 1979. Chanting "Death to Saddam," "Death to America" and "We want a democratic government," the protesters, including women wearing the traditional black chador, carried banners of the Badr Brigade, SCIRI's armed wing which it says numbers tens of thousands of fighters.

The occupation ended after three hours when police arrested about 50 people. Police also confiscated film and cassettes from news photographers and television cameramen, witnesses said. No Iraqi diplomats were present at the time. There are about 200,000 Iraqis living in Iran, many of them Shi'ite Muslims who fled their country after a failed Shi'ite uprising against Saddam in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War.

NO TO FOREIGNERS IN IRAQ - Khamenei, in his speech, called the U.S.-led military campaign in Iraq "an attack against Islam and Muslims" but said Iran was happy at the fall of Saddam. Torn between its deep hatred for Saddam, whose forces used chemical weapons against Iranian troops during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and its enmity for the United States, Iran has maintained neutrality in the conflict on its doorstep.

"We didn't help either side, but we're happy about Saddam's fall, like the Iraqi people are," Khamenei said. The head of Iran's conservative clerical establishment insisted that Iraqis should elect their next leader and denounced U.S. plans to set up a civil administration to be headed by retired General Jay Garner.

"The new ruler should not be a foreigner, a military man, a Zionist, but someone elected by the Iraqi people," he said. "Iraqis want a government based on their religious and national beliefs." He cautioned Iraqi opposition groups against cooperating with the United States. "If anybody helps foreigners to firm up their rule in Iraq, it would be a historic disgrace," he said.

AMERICANS ARE "REAL AXIS OF EVIL"

Khamenei, who holds all the keys of power in Iran and has the final say on foreign policy, railed against the "military aggressor" and branded the military occupation of Iraq "a return to colonialism, a reactionary, ugly and insulting move." Saying Iraqis would not accept "a new dictatorship," Khamenei however seemed to hold no hopes that U.S. troops would leave Iraq any time soon.

"If you respect, as you said, democracy and Iraqi people's rights you should leave Iraq right now," he said. "But, of course, they are not going to leave, because they were lying." Adopting his traditional anti-U.S. rhetoric, he said Americans "with this occupation proved they are... the real axis of evil, and the Great Satan." President Bush last year listed Iran on an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea, for allegedly sponsoring terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction. Iran denies the charges. Tehran and Washington severed relations in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution which toppled the U.S.-backed shah. Islamic radicals stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

US 'Stooges' Chosen For New Govt Executed By Iraqis Former Iraqi general Nizar Al-Khazaraji and Islamic scholar Majid Al-Khoi'i have both been executed by Iraqi residents of Najaf, according to five independent Iraqi witnesses to the incident who spoke to Arab News. The two potential Iraqi leaders of the city, who were supported by the US, "were chopped into pieces with swords and knives inside the Ali Mosque this morning by Iraqis who accused them of being American stooges," one of the witnesses said. Another said that a US Special Forces Soldier, who had been acting as their body guard, was also killed in the incident. Al-Khoi'i's death has since been confirmed by his family in London. However, there has been no independent confirmation of Al-Khazarji's death. Arab News War Correspondent Essam Al-Ghalib says from Najaf that he can confirm only that local Iraqis were talking about the death of Al-Khazarji, not that the man had actually been killed.

Dyncorp Rent-a-Cops May Head to Post-Saddam Iraq The scenes of looting in Iraq are heart-rending: the Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah in southern Iraq was pillaged last week by 20 armed thieves who grabbed a haul of drugs and several ambulances just as a man died in the hospital lobby from gunshot wounds. He sustained his injuries while resisting another gang that was trying to steal his car. Basra's Sheraton Hotel saw mobs of young men stealing tables, chairs, carpets and even a grand piano. British military officials, while proclaiming they had seized control of the city, acknowledged that the telephone system had shut down this week because scavengers had ripped out all the equipment. Commenting on the unfolding chaos an unnamed Pentagon official told the New York Times that they were seeking something more than the United Nations peace-keeping troops: "We know we want something a little more corporate and more efficient with cleaner lines of authority and responsibility."

Dyncorp has plenty of experience in the rent-a-cop field in other hot spots: Armed DynCorp employees make up the core of the police force in Bosnia. DynCorp troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai, while DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions over the coca crops in Colombia. Back home in the United States Dyncorp is in charge of the border posts between the US and Mexico, many of the Pentagon's weapons-testing ranges and the entire Air Force One fleet of presidential planes and helicopters. The company also reviews security clearance applications of military and civilian personnel for the Navy.

That plan appears to be almost ready. Half a world away from the bedlam in Iraq, just outside of Forth Worth, Texas, police recruiters are currently manning the phones for Dyncorp, a multi-billion dollar military Contractor. For Dyncorp the turmoil that is emerging in Iraq could mean a boom in business. "When the area is safe, we will go in. Watch CNN. In the meantime fax us a resume if you want a job," Homer Newman, a Dyncorp recruiter told Corpwatch. But Chuck Wilkins, a company spokesman in Virginia, said: "The contract hasn't yet been awarded." Yet a website has been offering Dyncorp jobs to "individuals with appropriate experience and expertise to participate in an international effort to re-establish police, justice and prison functions in post-conflict Iraq." The company is looking for active duty or recently retired cops and prison guards and "experienced judicial experts." Applicants must be US citizens with ten years of sworn civilian domestic law enforcement. The site even has a toll free number and a "cops.recruiting@dyncorp.com" email address for applicants. The website explains that recruits will help "establish police stations and monitor activities determining the selection, screening and training processes for police officers, demonstrating police practices and techniques used by democratic societies advising local police on criminal investigation methods and monitoring their progress working side-by-side with police officers from around the world reporting humanitarian violation."

Dyncorp has plenty of experience in the rent-a-cop field in other hot spots: Armed DynCorp employees make up the core of the police force in Bosnia. DynCorp troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai, while DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions over the coca crops in Colombia. Back home in the United States Dyncorp is in charge of the border posts between the US and Mexico, many of the Pentagon's weapons-testing ranges and the entire Air Force One fleet of presidential planes and helicopters. The company also reviews security clearance applications of military and civilian personnel for the Navy. DynCorp began in 1946 as a project of a small group of returning World War II pilots seeking to use their military contacts to make a living in the air cargo business. Named California Eastern Airways the original company was soon airlifting supplies to Asia used in the Korean War. By last year Dyncorp, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, was the nation's 13th largest military contractor with $2.3 billion in revenue. Earlier this week the company merged with Computer Sciences Corporation, an El Segundo, California-based technology services company, in an acquisition worth nearly $1 billion.

The company is not short on controversy. Under the Plan Colombia contract, the company has 88 aircraft and 307 employees - 139 of them American - flying missions to eradicate coca fields in Colombia. Soldier of Fortune magazine once ran a cover story on DynCorp, proclaiming it "Colombia's Coke-Bustin' Broncos." US Rep. Janice Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, told Wired magazine that hiring a private company to fly what amounts to combat missions is asking for trouble. DynCorp's employees have a history of behaving like cowboys," Schakowsky noted. "Is the US military privatizing its missions to avoid public controversy or to avoid embarrassment - to hide body bags from the media and shield the military from public opinion?" she asked.

Indeed a group of Ecuadoran peasants filed a class action against the company in September 2001. The suit alleges that herbicides spread by DynCorp in Colombia were drifting across the border, withering legitimate crops, causing human and livestock illness, and, in several cases, killing children. Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers intervened in the case right away telling the judge the lawsuit posed "a grave risk to US national security and foreign policy objectives." What's more, Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.

Earlier that year Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters in Kosovo, filed a lawsuit against his employer. The suit alleged that that in the latter part of 1999 Johnson "learned that employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts." The suit charges that "Johnston witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased." "DynCorp is just as immoral and elite as possible, and any rule they can break they do," Johnston told Insight magazine. He charged that the company also billed the Army for unnecessary repairs and padded the payroll. "What they say in Bosnia is that DynCorp just needs a warm body -- that's the DynCorp slogan. Even if you don't do an eight-hour day, they'll sign you in for it because that's how they bill the government. It's a total fraud."

Meanwhile, policing post-Saddam Iraq may be more than Dyncorp bargains for. Iraqis say the exercise of bringing in foreign police is fraught with danger. "People do not like Saddam, but they do not want a colonizing army," one young man told the Independent of London. "In the area where I live there was an older man, a retired soldier ... When he heard the Americans were coming he went and got his gun. When people asked why, he said it was because he did not want to be invaded."

Activist Shot in Gaza Said Brain Dead A 21-year-old British peace activist was shot Friday during fighting in the Gaza Strip, the second member of the Palestinian-backed International Solidarity Movement shot this month. Doctors declared him brain dead. The other, an American, was seriously injured. The Briton, Thomas Hurndall, from Manchester, was shot by a tank-mounted machine gun, suffering a head injury that left him comatose and hooked up to a respirator, doctors said. The incident occurred on a road outside the Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, as activists tried to set up a tent to block army incursions into the camp, witnesses said. Hurndall was standing between troops and Palestinian children at the time, said Khalil Abdullah, a Palestinian who witnessed the shooting. Hurndall was declared brain dead after arriving at Rafah Hospital, said Dr. Ali Musa. He later was transferred to Sorokka Hospital in Israel. The Israeli army had no comment about Friday's shooting but said it would investigate.

Sars biological weapon? The deadly pneumonia that has killed more than 100 people around the world may be a man-made biological weapon, Russian experts said on Friday. Nikolai Filatov, head of Moscow's epidemiological services, told the Gazeta daily that he thought the pneumonia was man-made because "there is no vaccine for this virus, its make-up is unclear, it has not been very widespread and the population is not immune to it." Yet he had some reservations, since the virus has a low mortality rate - so far killing 4% of those infected -, and because it is relatively difficult to pass on - through direct contact or inhalation. The virus, according to academy of medecine member Sergei Kolesnikov, is a cocktail of mumps and measles, whose mix could never appear in nature.

Mystery virus kills 10 children in Vietnam At least 10 Vietnamese children aged under three have died in the past month from an unidentified virus that is suspected to belong to the enterovirus group, state-run media reported on Tuesday. The cases are believed to be unrelated to the flu-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that has swept through many countries, killing four medical workers in Vietnam.

The Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said the 10 deaths were reported from 11 children admitted into Ho Chi Minh City's Children Hospital One. They all had high fever, diarrhoea, fell into comas and developed respiratory and heart failure. The latest death on Monday was of a 16-month child who died 11 hours after being admitted. Doctors were working to identify the virus which they suspected may belong to the 'enterovirus' group, which infects the intestines and causes paralysis, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Republican Attack On U.S. Veterans As Republicans raise the defense budget and cut taxes, like a stealth bomber they attempted to slash the benefits and health care of military veterans -- including those of soldiers fighting right now in Iraq! A question for the current Budget Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives: What on earth were you thinking?

As we see glimpses of grieving American families who have lost loved ones in Iraqand a body count that moves ever upward, the Republican majority in the HouseBudget Committee last week proposed to slash the Veterans Administration health care budget by $844 million. The House Republicans also proposed an additional $463 million cut in veteran's benefits from next year's budget. Further cuts were being planned for the next 10 years.

Many of the Republicans who backed these cuts are at this time portraying themselves as flag waving, "stand up for our troops" cheerleaders. Fortunately these cuts have been put on hold, just barely. After some 11th-hour arm twisting and perhaps a change of heart, the House-approved spending plan provides an approximate $3 billion increase for veterans health care as well as maintaining mandatory spending for veterans compensation and benefits.

To show their true support of our troops, the Republican representatives supporting cuts in veterans benefits might consider donating a portion of their salary to the families of our dead and wounded.

Taking this one step further, companies and corporations lined up to benefit from this war might also consider setting aside some of their profits for the families of our dead and maimed. This would prove your campaign contributions and lobbying efforts were not just made for purposes of blind greed at the expense of our young people's blood. It would be the Christian, American and honorable thing to do

NY Police Admit Keeping Anti-War Protest Database New York police admitted on Thursday to compiling and then destroying a database of people arrested during anti-war protests, but rights groups decried the practice as an erosion of civil liberties in the name of the U.S. war on terrorism.A "debriefing form" was used by detectives to record information on hundreds of people arrested in a series of protests since mid-February against the U.S.-led war on Iraq.